A lab tech at the University of Washington with a green card was recently detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Now, her family is coming out.
Lewelyn Dixon, 64, was taken at the Seattle airport by ICE after returning from a trip to her home country of the Philippines in late February. She has been legally living in the U.S. for 50 years. Her hearing is in July, but her family and friends want her to be freed and told NBC News that she is what keeps the family together.
Lani Madriaga, Dixon’s niece, said, “She’s always been our go-to.” She called her a mother figure. “That’s always been her.”
NBC News asked ICE for a response, but they didn’t answer right away.
Madriaga said Dixon is being held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington. While she waits for her hearing, Dixon has been hanging out with other prisoners, speaking for them, and helping them talk to their lawyers.
Benjamin Osorio, Dixon’s lawyer, said that U.S. Customs and Border Protection probably detained her because they saw a charge for embezzlement from decades ago on her record when she came back. Dixon admitted to the minor crime in 2000 and was told to pay back the money and stay in a halfway house for 30 days, according to court records. In 2019, she finished making amends.
Dixon worked at Washington Mutual Bank as a vault teller and operations supervisor. According to her plea agreement, she “removed cash from the vault on eight separate occasions” without permission from the bank. She took out a total of $6,460.
Madriaga said Dixon never told Dixon’s family about the sentence. She called it her aunt’s “darkest secret.”
Osorio said, “If she hadn’t traveled, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Osorio said Dixon has been able to become a U.S. citizen for a long time, but she told her father she would keep her Filipino status so she could keep her property and land in the Philippines.
“She most likely didn’t know the risk,” Osorio said. “If not, she probably would have become a citizen before she went on the trip.”
Dixon moved to the U.S. when she was 14 years old and helped Madriaga and her brothers, who were also immigrants, get used to their new home right away.
“We stayed together.” We shared a room to sleep. Madriaga, 59, said, “We stayed in that room when we were kids. It had a bunk bed and an extra bed.” “She did things on her own and was a good example because she made sure I had hard work.”
After that, Madriaga’s sister got divorced and became a single mom. Dixon moved to Washington state to be with the kids and help pay the rent. Following many years, Madriaga went through her own split and said Dixon was also there to help with the kids.
“That was tough.” “Because she was still young, she made sure to take care of my youngest child,” Madriaga said. “She’s like a second mom to her.”
Madriaga said that Dixon works hard at the lab. She had even planned to work a shift the night before she got off the plane, she said. Dixon was almost at the 10-year mark at work, which is when her income would start to grow. After being away for so long, her family is afraid she’ll lose both her job and her income.
One person who works at UW Medicine, Susan Gregg, wouldn’t say more about Dixon’s case, but she did say that she had been a lab worker at the hospital since 2015.
Gregg said, “UW Medicine cares about the health and safety of all its employees and hopes Lewelyn gets fair treatment soon.”
Madriaga said that the family is coming out for their aunt and also wants to help other people avoid the same thing that happened to them.
“No” to those who didn’t become citizens like my aunt because they thought they would be safe. “Go become a citizen,” Madriaga told them.
